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So if practicing with .38's is useless then dry firing must be a complete waste of time. All those hundreds of hours dry firing wasted oh woe is me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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sigpic Noblesse Oblige -
From a SHTF perspective.
If you find yourself with no gun and no ammo.
You have a choice between picking up a 38 or 357 pistol from the table.....your choice is going to be the 357.Comment
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Originally Posted by RTE
From a SHTF perspective.
If you find yourself with no gun and no ammo.
You have a choice between picking up a 38 or 357 pistol from the table.....your choice is going to be the 357.From a SHTF perspective.
Any ammo one would come across traveling from point A to B
(38, 38+P, 38+P+, 357 etc)
Point being you can get by with more if you own a 357 over a 38.Comment
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I own a 340 pd and it is the best gun there is for a 12 ounce gun. It is reliable and powerful and you can even fire it from your pocket if you don't mind catching on fire after.
I trust it one hell of a lot more than a 9mm the same size and weight.
As for shooting 38 spl being "useless" I don't think so.. I have a couple of 38spl guns and they are great fun to shoot and very accurate. I believe that a dedicated 38 spl gun most all of time will outshoot a .357 gun that is shooting the same 38spl rounds.
and for the guy who thinks the stopping power of the .357 is myth.. there are still shootings happening with the .357 and it is still number one. while other calibers have advanced.. so has the .357. The others will always be playing catchup because there are limitations on semi autos that do not exist for .357 revolvers.Comment
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The earlier Model 19s were not designed for continuous Magnum shooting(I'm not too sure the later ones stand up any better). They were designed in the era of "practise with 38 sp, carry 357 Mag". When Police departments started the policy of practising what you carried, many of the lighter framed 357 Magnum revolvers started shooting loose. There were also reports of forcing cone cracking with the newer 38 Sp +P+ Police ammo that was being issued.
That is why the L framed S&Ws came into being.Comment
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How about this?
Practice with .357s, then carry .38?
That way, when you confront an attacker and you plant several .38 slugs in his knees and lower legs because of flinching, it will look better in court and you won't have to explain to an ignorant jury why you were using the ".357 Magnum" (which most non-gunners and antis understand as "death ray."
seriously though - I can see the value of training both ways. Always using the same load, same ammo, same gun, builds a familiarity such that a proficient shooter knows exactly where the bullet is going the second the hammer falls. However, with budgetary constraints, it does sometimes make sense to train on something that will build muscle memory and trigger and breath control while not costing as much as full-on premium defensive ammunition. To that end, I am a fan of .22 conversion kits. I have one for my 1911's, and they're a blast to shoot. I thought about getting a S&W 617 as a companion to my S&W 66, but dang - the .22 revolver costs more than the .357!!"Two dead?!? HOW?!?"
[sigh] "Bullets, mortar fire, heavy artillery salvos, terminal syphilis, bad luck --- the usual things, Captain."Comment
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-- MichaelComment
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"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog.
You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart.
You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."
Originally Posted by JackRydden224
I hope Ruger pays the extortion fees for the SR1911. I mean the gun is just as good if not better than a Les Baer.Originally posted by redcliffA Colt collector shooting Rugers is like Hugh Grant cheating on Elizabeth Hurley with a hooker.
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357 loads in the J frame airweights (340PD, 360PD etc.) is painfull to shoot for more than 5 to 10 rounds, those guns were made to be carried alot and shot a little. Now shooting 38 in the same airweights is not a big deal.
357 loads in the large steel (heavier) K frames is fun to shoot!
I also handload 357 cases with 5-grains 231 and 125-grain copper coated truncated cone bullets for practice sessions to prevent that 38 carbon ring in the 357 cylinder."Bruen, the Bruen opinion, I believe, discarded the intermediate scrutiny test that I also thought was not very useful; and has, instead, replaced it with a text history and tradition test." Judge Benitez 12-12-2022
NRA Endowment Life Member, CRPA Life Member
GLOCK (Gen 1-5, G42/43), Colt AR15/M16/M4, Sig P320, Sig P365, Beretta 90 series, Remington 870, HK UMP Factory Armorer
Remington Nylon, 1911, HK, Ruger, Hudson H9 Armorer, just for fun!
I instruct it if you shoot it.Comment
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Who honestly wants to practice with .38 special? I do. My favorite .357 is a Model 19. A steady diet of full-house Magnum ammo would stretch the frame and ruin an irreplaceable pistol (I snagged it when my former agency switched from revolvers to Glocks). I do it often enough to be sure of where it hits, but that's it.
As to the second piece of "wisdom"... I think not.I'm retired. That's right, retired. I don't want to hear about the cop who stopped you today or how you didn't think you should get a ticket. That just makes me grumpy!Comment
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Does anyone have a dB comparison between 4" and 6" .357's shooting the same load?
Oh and also, I'll take the hearing loss over the being dead.Comment
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The wise man said just find your place
In the eye of the storm
Seek the roses along the way
Just beware of the thorns... K. MeineComment
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It probably is. Somewhere I have a paper written around 1995 or 1998 (?) by a couple of engineers who measured the sound pressure level at various points arounds a semi-circle from directly in front of the muzzle to directly behind it. IIRC (it's been a while since I read it) they found 95% or more of sound pressure behind the gun was predicted by the muzzle blast. Cylinder gap in a revolver caused a small "blip" for detectors close the the 90 degree mark but made no significant difference to what the shooter experienced.
The guns were fired in an open field with no echo sources nearby.Politicians and criminals are moral twins separated only by legal fiction.Comment
...but what ammo are you going to pick up.... 
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